I'm having a bit of a struggle with citing a research paper I'm writing. There's one paragraph riddled with information from just one website. Is it necessary to cite each and every fact to that website over and over again? Or is there a legal way of implying all of the information in that paragraph came from one source? Because at the rate I'm going, I'm quickly running out of comfortable ways to cite every single sentence with the same source. Of course I could scour the net, find more sources, and put in more information to make it seem less awkward. But, who has time for that?
Thanks, and reply soon!
edit: Sorry if this has been answered multiple times. I'm sifting through other MLA question threads right now, but I can't seem to find any that specifically answers my question.
edit2: Woops. I posted this in the wrong forum. Sorry, mods! Thanks for moving it.
If any of you out there can answer my question without reading the paragraph, that's great. But I think I'm going to go ahead and post it anyway if you feel there isn't sufficient information.
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From what archeologists can gather today from the early historian, Vegetius, Roman generals were master tacticians. Nowhere does the Roman talent for organization show itself so dominantly as in its army. If they could, they used every variable possible to their advantage.
For example, in daylight the Roman army would ensure to approach their target with the sun at their backs. This causes the enemy to be "dazzled" by the oncoming sunlight, making it difficult for them to see (Roman-empire.net). Another prime example of strategy is whenever the Roman Army goes into to battle with a strong wind blowing they would approach the enemy with the wind at their backs. Not only does it give the Romans an advantage for their projectiles (adversely, the enemy would be at a disadvantage with theirs), dust and other particles have a larger chance of blowing into the opponent's eyes rather than their own (Roman-empire.net). Another successful tactic would be to place the infantrymen in the middle of the lines and the cavalry on the sides. The purpose of the cavalry placement this was to prevent the lines of infantry men of being outflanked (Roman-empire.net). Also, when the enemy begins to retreat, the cavalry are there to move forward and strike them down. "Horsemen were always a secondary force in ancient warfare, the main fighting being done by the infantry. " (Roman-empire.net). On top of general positions and placements, there are various strategic formations the Roman armies exercised in order to overtake the competition. One of them was appropriately named the "tortoise". "The tortoise was essentially a defensive formation by which the legionaries would hold their shields overhead, except for the front rows, thereby creating a kind of shell-like armor shielding them against missiles from the front or above." (Roman-empire.net). Another one of the army's countless military mechanisms is named "the wedge". The wedge, unlike the defensive tortoise formation, is an aggressively offensive tactic largely used by legionaries (Roman-empire.net). Just as the name suggests, infantrymen would line up forming a 'V' and point the 'tip' towards the enemy. This enabled the Romans to break enemy lines and push into their forces with ease (Roman-empire.net). The legionaries were at an advantage in such close combat, for they had their short gladius swords that are easy to move in such enclosed spaces (Roman-empire.net). With tactics like that, and the sheer force of Rome's 375,000-man army, the empire was seemingly unstoppable (Wikipedia).
Of course I could scour the net, find more sources, and put in more information to make it seem less awkward.
Well, at least you know what you
should do . . .
But if you're not going to, then what you have done is fine. It is better to cite a bit too much than to leave off a citation and get accused of plagiarism. The former might lose you a percentage point or two of the mark, probably not even enough to knock you down a letter grade, whereas the latter can be a very serious matter indeed.
"
con versely, the enemy would be at a disadvantage with theirs"
I agree with Sean!! It is awkward, but cite over and over again. Sometimes, though, it is alright to write a few sentences and then at the end of the paragraph cite the source they came from.
Note: The second sentence in this seems to be taken word for word from a website. Google that sentence and you'll see it at the top of the list, with "clearly" instead of "dominantly"
That's interesting, about the second sentence. It's a fairly standard construction, almost cliche. Certainly I could see myself writing a similar sentence if I were writing on the same topic. I wonder what the chances are of two writers coming up with a very similar sentence construction when writing on the same topic, especially when those two can be any two picked out of a pool of thousands? I'm assuming in this case that the example wasn't deliberate plagiarism, given that Lauren went out of her way to cite everything else.
Yes! I'm glad you said that. I think the same thing. I was only mentioning it to be helpful. She cites well!
Would it be ok to do something like this: Instead of putting the name of the website for every citation could you just put numbers instead like this:
Roman soldiers used swords.(1) They also used shields and rode horses in battle.(2)
Then at the end of the paper you could have one citation that covers numbers one through whatever. Then you would have one citation for every different source instead of one citation for every piece of information for in each source.
Well, that is how it is done in Chicago style and also Turabian, but you have to make sure that style is okay with your prof. Also, you would not just assign a number to each source, the numbers have to go in order. A few years ago, if you referred to the most recently cited source this way, you could write "ibid" to show that the citation is identical to the previous one... but that changed, I think, and ibid is not okay in Chicago anymore. Anyway, only do that if you know how to cite in Chicago. And only if the prof is cool with it.
That just makes more sense to me. It seems like as long as you give thorough credit for all the information you use that is clearly identifyable and complete it shouldn't matter what format you use. Though I know it is necessary, I think for me citation is one of the most annoying things about writing. Grrr...
One of the things I've done before in essays where all of the information comes from the same source is to just include a footnote at the end of the first citation that says "All information in this paragraph is condensed from ______" where the blank is filled by the name of your source. It looks neater and it frees you from any accusations of plagiarism. Plus, it isn't a violation of MLA format as long as your first citation is correct.
Oh, nice Sean, thanks!